Yeppers, we’re back at it again, it would seem – and I’m delighted that we are!
Busy hands, happy hands, right? Spring cleaning is a ways off for us here in CA, but then again, you are at the other side of the world. I often muse about whether your toilets flush counter-clockwise; what a thing to think about! When I was 12 or 13, I was playing in the bathroom flushing firecrackers down the toilet and getting off on (“getting off” is a slang phrase here) the sound of the firecrackers in the cast-iron pipes. Gee, it sorta sounded like a submarine depth alarm or something. Well, the last firecracker I flushed didn’t make it past the P-trap (part of the toilet essential to keeping smells down under) and I blew the damn toilet up – pieces of porcelain everywhere! Well, if that wasn’t so bad, imagine my expectations when I went upstairs and announced to my mother and father that I had just blown up the toilet!
Mercy me! My dad was terrific – and as cool as a cucumber. He said, “Well, young man, you are going to buy a new toilet out of your paper route monies and learn how to install it! My mom just smiled broadly (in her infinite wisdom). So you can now understand that I have interest in those “water closets” we all need to use! When my brother came back from living in England, he told me that in England the plumbing system is quite different, inasmuch as the toilets are flushed via a water reservoir above the toilet and not by water pressure as ours are. They also use 220 volts for household wiring (twice what we use), and Dave (my bro) joked about how his son, Scott, plugged in a laser printer to the wrong voltage and near blew the darn thing up!
I so wish I hadn’t lost my friendship with Scott in the bipolar rubble. I guess both he and his sister have me painted up as the bipolar black sheep of the family. Both Dave’s kids are a credit to he and his wife, Ruth. Son Scott is now corporate vice-president of Microsoft, and daughter Robin graduated from Duke Medical School and is now in family practice as a doctor. Kahlil Gibran wrote in his book The Prophet, “Your children are your arrows into the future…” and though Dave died in 1997 with pancreatic cancer (nasty), to his credit he did a hell of a great job of parenting his kids.
Dave and I sat down at one of our rare dinners together and I remember our conversation well. I had my contractor’s license then for several years and was making a rather decent go of it, and Dave told me how proud he was of me. As Dave had a dual role in my life, both as an older brother and in a way like a father (or that’s how I saw him). When I attempted suicide in 1973, the guy stepped up to the plate and took care of my finances (in chaos) and visited me regularly in the burn unit. And I remember one comment he made to me with regard to the suicide attempt, “Brother, that was one hell of a dumb thing to do.” As usual, he was right.
It was awkward when I was about to be discharged from the burn unit of the hospital after a long, long stay (burns take so long to heal). The social worker inquired whether Dave and Ruth would be willing to have me live with them while I put my life back together, and the two of them made exactly the right choice by declining to step into that role with me. For a time I was in consternation, a bit angry, but looking back (always 20/20), it was absolutely the right decision. Though I was discharged into a grim board-and-care situation, I needed to be there to realize that, once again, it was time to start from the bottom in order to have perspective – that would not have come via a silver spoon (gratuitous help on the part of my brother & sister-in-law).
And the good wisdom of them as a couple has become part of Ruth’s way of dealing with me. When I was in one of my more destitute phases, I called her and asked her for help, some money. She paused and then told me that she felt it was important for me with my bipolar disorder problems to reach out into the community, and for that reason she declined to help me out. I was so broke at that time, Jenny, that I sold the family Bible to a used bookstore for $50, enough for a pack or two of smokes and food at McDonalds! I told Ruth about it and she arranged to have it sent to her in North Carolina. I mused that by her doing so, she certainly is part of the Guthrie clan insofar as valuing a essential piece of my father’s inheritance to me. I got the Bible, Dave got the grandfather clock – we were to get no money because it was the bellief system of the Guthries that since women had a harder time of it in the workplace than men do, then it was only logical that the women should get the bulk of any inheritance.
Well, I’ve hardly done much in the way of answering your letter but done more of relating family stuff to you! But you have Steve and it seems like (if I hear you correctly). I can recall my hostility towards my own mother – and at age 16, I took it out on her by running away from home for a month and leaving her an angry note blaming her for the divorce and my being 400 miles away from the father I loved dearly. I guess I was direct with anger back then…and I think when I am angry, I’m fairly transparent…it shows. I can remember a disagreement you and I had quite some time ago and I dug in and took a position contrary to yours. But I’m thankful that the truth (or the compromise) ended up that we have our friendship/relationship via corresponding as opposed to the chatting method I’m so comfortable with.
So Steve seems reluctant to seek the advice or counsel of a therapist at this point from what you said. As I’m a proponent of peer-to-peer relationships being often more helpful to people with mood-related or addiction-related issues, I wonder if you have (or Steve has) access to something like that? You mentioned he now has Medicare help…and I don’t know to what extent in your country that would cover outpatient services (here it does not; only inpatient). There is an old saying that, “S/he who has the gold rules…” And when I’ve been down and out and desparate, I do get angry at the system (Bank of America, for one) and also towards my family for not helping. But helping another person financially and in the manner perceived as “rescuing them,” seems to inevitably end up with the “victim” or person rescued feeling angry. There is a paradigm in the codependence arena where the relationship is depicted as triangular. “Codependence” and its variants are confusing, and my family therapy teacher told us that in her opinion, she’d rather avoid “The C word” as it muddies up what happens.
She used the tool known as the genogram, a depiction of the family tree and between elements of the tree, the relationships are shown. What is interesting in using that tool in working with someone, is that things like mood disorders, alcoholism and other behaviors seem to have their origins further up the family tree and then they get passed on in a smilar or perhaps different form. Might that not be true for you and Steve, I wonder? I think you are handling it marvelously, being clear with your boundaries, letting him steer the boat towards his own healing! In an A.A. group yesterday we were talking about sponsorship, what constitutes a “good sponsor.” And when I thought of the many sponsors I have had the privilege of working with, I imagine the icon of a sponsor as being “a lighthouse.” And I mean that in the sense that s/he doesn’t tell the sponsee how or where to find answers but does listen and share with him the reality of where he is, in a way like the lighthouse does.
Well, I got off on a tangent and that sometimes happens when I write to you! Today I was discharged from the hospital and I’ll be staying at the Victory Mission tonight again. My roommate, Sam (who plays the ukelele (sp?) and is Hawaiian) and I have formed a great friendship, played and sang together some – I think we were among the most healthy people in the convalescent hospital where I stayed for, gasp, almost a month and a half! Life took an odd turn with this knee problem, but it gave me ample time to put all my ducks in a row with regard to finances, hospital records and the like – as well as have enjoyed a stable and regular regimen of medications. Adding the lithium back did help to stabilize me…it seems having taken it since 1985, my old body is used to it. Lamictal is a winner as is Wellbutrin (small dose) and Provigil. I’m steady Eddie at this point and intend to stay that way.
Well, sending this off to you and I promise to get more focused on what you’ve written (and I love how you write) and less off on a tangent (but that’s fun, too)!
